Friday 8 June 2012

Because We May results

Following up from previous post:

Sos had a similar idea to me; he raised the price of Super Office Stress to $99.99. Which is pretty great; I was too timid to go off the scale like that and I'm stoked that someone else did. His writeup is here. Between us we provoked some discussion and provided some entertainment, so I definitely count it as a success. I enjoyed browsing various forum threads about the sale and seeing people have a bit of a chuckle when they noticed what we'd done (or in some cases freaking out, getting angry, or assuming it was an error).

To clarify some things: I'm not stupid, and I know how sales usually work. I know sales do work - Vertex Dispenser was in the Indie Royale bundle recently and that was easily the most profitable thing I've done in game-selling, I'm very grateful to them for that opportunity. I know that not everyone has a huge amount of money - I don't - and I love that sales can make things (legitimately) available to people who simply can't afford to purchase them at full price. I certainly don't think that sales are something we should never do.

But it worries me if massive discounts become the only way to sell games at all, because that's an environment in which only those selling a huge number of copies can survive. I'm way more interested - both as a creator and a consumer - in weird obscure stuff that doesn't tend to appeal to a mass audience, so I'd like to encourage a system where that sort of thing is viable.

So here are some numbers:

Glitch Tank
Week before the sale: 14 copies.
During the sale: 7 copies.
Week after the sale: 25 copies.

Zaga-33
Week before the sale: 27 copies.
During the sale: 3 copies.
Week after the sale: 90 copies.

So my total income from those games those weeks was about $40, $50, $100.
(It's fiddly to work out the exact numbers for this because appstore prices vary between regions, and they don't tell you directly.)

Thank you to everyone who bought my games - at either price.

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